


ain't love a sucker punch

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [8]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21715978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: prompt request: beaujester sparring?or, it feels nice when your hot and fit roommate pays attention to you and touches you so naturally you're gonna ask her to teach you how to throw a proper punch because you're best friends! not because of any other reason!
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 3
Kudos: 194





	ain't love a sucker punch

‘Okay, a couple ground rules first up,’ Beau calls from the ground where she has pressed herself into this wild stretch that has her nearly folded in half, hands reached forward and holding her ankles. Jester can only watch in admiration and wonder, in Beauregard, and also whether it's, like, oddly warm in the training room Is that an enchantment they can do? Maybe some kind of control weather?

‘First,' Beau says, pulling Jester's attention back to her and the new way her body is contorting. So impressive. 'You can _not_ inflict wounds on me.’

‘Oh but that’s my _favourite_!’

Beau snorts. ‘Yeah, but it nearly stopped my heart last time so maybe cool it with trying to melt my guts. Okay?’

‘Fine. What’s rule two?’

Beau twists back to her original stretch and pulls herself further forward, hands reaching out beyond her feet. She kinda looks like a cat like this, back arched slightly as she spreads her fingers, sighs with satisfaction when she reaches a point where she can’t stretch any further.

‘Hmm? What? Nah, just the one rule.’

‘Just one? So...what if I summoned a spiritual weapon and it was, like, a knuckle duster of spiky candy?’

Beau slowly un-stretches herself, walks her hands backwards and eases up. With a happy bounce, she rockets up onto her feet, jumps a few times as she pulls her hands up in front of her in an all too familiar fighting pose, letting them drop a second later. She tilts her head left then right, rolls out her shoulders.

‘That’d be fuckin’ sick,' she declares. ' _Can_ you do that?’

‘I don’t know, but now I really wanna try.’

‘Yeah, that’d be dope. Maybe not right now, because,’ and Beau grins, wide and open and happy in a way she doesn’t let herself be a lot of the time, the way Jester has slowly started to realise only ever happens rarely, or when Beau is with her and her alone, ‘I’m teaching you to throw a proper punch, remember?’

‘Yes.’ Jester nods.

‘So after I think you’ve got that down, _then_ you can try and murder me with a fistful of candy. Sound good?’

Jester smiles oh so prettily, a mouthful of gleaming sharp teeth, the picture of dangerous innocence. ‘Yes.’

Beau narrows her eyes, now certain Jester has a trick or two up her flouncy sleeves. ‘Alright. Hands up.’ She steps in, takes Jester’s hand to guide her. ‘Fold your thumb on—yeah, there you go, the outside of your fist. You remembered!’

‘Pretty hard to forget.’

‘I told you about that kid who broke his thumb?’

‘That’s what’s hard to forget,’ Jester confirms. Shudders.

Beau seems to have forgotten she’s holding Jester’s hand because she doesn't let go or step back as she smiles down at her. So close, the inch or two of height she has on the other girl seems like quite a distance. ‘That’s what grosses you out? A broken thumb? You’ve done grosser shit than that.’

‘Name _one_ thing that’s grosser than a broken finger.’

‘Egg dick.’

‘Wasn’t me. And that was _funny. And_ we never actually saw it.’

‘Fair.’ Beau is still holding her hand. She's still holding her hand, and _Beau's_ hand, Jester notes, is very warm. Dry with chalk from when she had done her pull ups, only stopping when Jester had interrupted her. ‘Uh, skinning a bunch of crocodiles and keeping that gross melted skin.’

‘Okay, that was gross.’

‘The rotten milk Caleb spewed up,’

‘Oh, no, Beau that was so bad, I can’t believe he actually drank it, it was all clumpy and,’ Jester shudders, and delights in the way Beau cackles, that lovely nigh-on-but-not- _really-_ mean laugh she does when she’s laughing at Caleb.

Beau shakes her head, still grinning. A strand of dark hair pulls free, topples out of her messy top knot. It falls in front of her face and Beau is too quick, already pushing it back behind her ear before Jester realises what the impulse is, telling her to brush it back for Beau.

Beau steps back. When she releases Jester’s hand, Jester lets it fall. Beau catches her before her guard falls entirely, pulls Jester’s fist back into position. ‘Here,’ she reminds Jester, ‘keep it here, so you can block your vitals or jab out, whatever you need to do.’

‘Here?’

Beau nods. Adjusts Jester’s position a bit—feet a little further apart, just the tiniest fraction really but Jester feels the difference in her balance. Feels more grounded, like she wouldn’t fall off balance if she struck out at Beau. So she does, and gasps when Beau catches it on her cheek, not expecting the attack yet.

‘Oh! Beau, I'm sorry, I thought—‘

‘Nah, that’s on me,’ Beau waves her off. Shakes her head, presses her hand to the spot tentatively. She works her jaw for a second, must decide that it's fine because she nods, laughs. ‘I should’ve known you’d be a cheater.’

Jester scowls. ‘You only gave me one rule!’

Beau open her mouth as if to answer crankily. Stops. ‘I mean—shit, I guess you’re right.’ She smiles, a sharp smile that makes Jester take a wary step back. ‘No rules, Jessie. You ready?’

‘When you say _no_ rules—‘

‘The no inflict wounds rule is always up.’

‘Fine,’ Jester mutters.

‘Great!’ Beau’s fist lashes out before Jester even finishes bringing her guard up; it’s obvious that she pulls the punch because Jester doesn’t feel much more than a dull tap where it impacts, and the next three punches. ‘Slow reactions, Jes. Gotta be faster. C’mon—hit me, let’s go!’

Jester tries. She really really does. She even hits a few times, not bothering to pull her punches because she lands maybe one in ten or fifteen, while Beau seems to lands tap after tap against her shoulders, spine, hip, places that feel like nothing at all until suddenly they bloom with a faint pain, one that Jester knows would be much worse if they were fighting for real. She keeps up a steady stream of instruction as she does, where Jester should be putting her feet, where she should watch for someone’s strike in their chest, and as Jester watches she starts to see it in Beau herself—the graceful shift of her footwork to keep herself balanced, aligned, the pull in her shoulders and chest when she reaches out with a punch. the movement of muscle beneath glistening dark skin, and the way her wisping hair sticks with sweat to her neck, her forehead. The burgeoning smile as the fight continues and Jester listens to the actually rather good instruction, Beau’s voice always calm and crisp, never once annoyed even when Jester needs something repeated or demonstrated multiple times.

‘Wanna try out your candy dusters?’ Beau asks later when Jester is exhausted, arms noodley and sore from trying to keep her guard up and push Beau’s hits away.

Jester shakes her head, lifts trembling hands to brush her own sweat-damp curls out of her eyes. ‘Tomorrow,’ she pants, flaps her hand. ‘Too tired.’

‘You’re on!’

‘And—‘

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Spoilsport,’ Jester bemoans. There’s something nice about the way Beau knows what she wanted to ask, though. A shared joke, sure, but it's nice regardless that she knows. And as Beau walks with her out of the room, Jester notices too, maybe because she's been focused so intently on it now, how Beau's steps fall into pace with her own, and how Beau leans into her space as they talk and laugh, and she begins to wonder, if a shift in the chest indicates the punch to come, what that gentle pull of Beau’s smile means, what that gentle hand on the small of her back to guide a tired Jester up the stairs means, what that unwavering magnetic _pull_ toward her _means_.

**Author's Note:**

> hi im unicyclehippo on tumblr as well, feel free to swing on by & say hi or send me a prompt x


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